The government passed a significant strengthening of its Environmental Protection Law (EPL) in 2014. The EPL indicates the serious commitment to governance and accountability. This was the first major revision of the EPL since 1989.

Engineer Jim Southerland was hired by the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1971 to join the nascent war on air pollution. He came to relish the task, investigating orange clouds from an ammunition plant in Tennessee and taking air samples from strip mines in Wyoming. Among his proudest accomplishments: helping the agency develop a set of numbers called emission factors—values that enable regulators to estimate atmospheric discharges from power plants, oil refineries, chemical plants and other industrial operations.

BEIJING, May 30 (Xinhua) -- The latest round of air pollution inspections in China have uncovered many violations of environmental rules among companies.

Some 23 inspection teams examined 319 businesses on Sunday and discovered that 251 companies, or 79 percent of the total, violated environmental standards in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and other nearby areas.

On World Environmental Day yesterday, EARTH released a report on pollution in Thailand in 2015 and 2016, exposing serious problems at the Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Rayong, unresolved issues at gold mines in Phichit and Loei, and ongoing environmental conflicts related to waste management and coal-fired power plant projects.

Natural gas pipeline leaks that pose a safety hazard are quickly addressed. But what about leaks too small to pose a threat? These mall leaks are often overlooked and they collectively release tons of methane, a greenhouse gas 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

However, thanks to researchers from Colorado State University, the University of Northern Colorado, and Conservation Science Partners—who’ve teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund—a small unit of Google Street View cars are turning into mobile methane sensors to monitor leaks that have flown under the radar.

The household garbage management rate will be tripled nationwide, to replace the current unrealistic rate that does not cover the actual waste management cost, the Ministry of Interior says.

The new rate for households will be a minimum of 60 baht per month, up from 20 baht.

Dhana Yantrakovit, deputy chief of the Department of Local Administration (DLA), said the new garbage management fee will be introduced immediately after ministerial regulations related to waste management are announced.

Environmental inspectors in northern China have found that nearly 14,000 companies, or 70 percent of the businesses they examined, failed to meet environmental standards for controlling air pollution, according to a state news agency report.

The inspectors working for the Ministry of Environmental Protection came up with those results after two months of work across 28 cities in northern China, said Xinhua, the state news agency. The companies and industries varied widely, including businesses such as wool processing and furniture production.

Chatree said the situation was particularly bad along the Mae Kha Canal in the Fa Mai neighbourhood, the exit point for water draining out of the urban area. Garbage collected there in a bottleneck, he said, impeding drainage.